Don't believe the ADL, we are secure in America Opinion

Lindsay Moore / FPG

FPGJJBSretirement0409C FPG Photo/Lindsay Moore 4/2/2009 Rabbi Bruce Warshal of the Liberal Jewish Temple of Coconut Creek listens to temple members speak about him during his retirement luncheon at the Palm-Aire Country Club in Pompano Beach, Thursday, April 2, 2009. ORG XMIT: FPG0904031613333236

FPGJJBSretirement0409C FPG Photo/Lindsay Moore 4/2/2009 Rabbi Bruce Warshal of the Liberal Jewish Temple of Coconut Creek listens to temple members speak about him during his retirement luncheon at the Palm-Aire Country Club in Pompano Beach, Thursday, April 2, 2009. ORG XMIT: FPG0904031613333236 (Lindsay Moore / FPG)

Last month I published a column in the Jewish Journal that discussed anti-Semitism "minus the hysteria." I reported that 10% of all Americans hate other Americans. We are not a singled-out minority. This still leaves 30 million people in this country hating us. Putting that in context, I feel secure as part of the great multi-cultural American experiment.

Having written that, I did not want to return to this topic so quickly. But then the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) published its 2017 Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents. The headline blares that anti-Jewish incidents rose 57% in 2017, "the largest single-year increase on record." It attributes the major part of this increase to anti-Semitic acts on college campuses.

The audit received front-page coverage in newspapers and prominent coverage in magazines and other media. But recent studies by Brandeis University and Stanford University found just the opposite. The Forward writes, "Both of these studies seem to support the conclusion that campus anti-Semitism is a negligible phenomenon."

Whom should we believe? My answer is, never, ever, believe ADL statistics. Benjamin Disraeli said that there are three kinds of lies – lies, damn lies, and statistics. ADL has perfected the third kind.

This is not a new phenomenon. Sixteen years ago, a skin-head living in Boynton Beach distributed anti-Semitic pamphlets in 25 Jewish Journal street boxes in Palm Beach County. A definite anti-Semitic incident. But the ADL counted it as 25 separate incidents. Lies, damn lies, and statistics.

Harassment – An increase of 294 incidents, up 41%. Digging deeper, we find that 150 of these incidents are attributable to a sick Israeli teenager who made bomb threats to American synagogues and Jewish community centers from his home in Israel. Excluding these bomb threats the increase was only 5%.

Two points: First, ADL counted this as 150 incidents when it was part of one person's sick spasm. Second, the audit was supposed to measure the increase of anti-Semitism in America. These bomb threats did not reflect an increase in American anti-Semitism. Also, digging deeper again, the audit admits that a substantial part of the increased harassment derives from "heightened sensitivity to bullying" in K-12 schools. Note, not a heightened increase in anti-Semitism.

Vandalism – An increase of 443 incidents, up 86%. Of these, 186 occurred in the K-12 school setting, including incidents of a non-Jewish student drawing a swastika on another student's notebook. One could argue that this was harassment, and maybe it was included in the harassment statistics as well, but it was included in the vandalism section because it was against property, a major piece of property, a notebook.

There were six serious instances of vandalism, namely headstones being overturned in Jewish cemeteries. But putting it in perspective, there are 30 million people in America who don't like us amongst more than 300 million Americans and only six serious vandalism issues in 2017. And the audit admitted, "One bright spot in this was the response of members of the Muslim and Christian faiths, who raised thousands of dollars to help repair the damaged tombstones."

Assaults – Surprise: assaults decreased from 36 in 2016 to 19 in 2017. But the ADL included such "assaults" as "Non-Jewish high school students throwing pennies at observant Jews they see," or "a Jewish family harassed at a local Target." Question: Did they double count these incidents in the harassment category? In reading the audit it is difficult to answer that question. Important to note: not one incident of an actual assault, a real physical beating, a la Berlin, circa 1938. Why do they even have the assault category?

ADL raises money based on fear. The last time I looked, their annual budget was more than $50 million, supporting 29 regional offices in America and three abroad. That's a lot of money that could be spent on Jewish camping, education and cultural enhancement. Instead, ADL fosters Jewish victim-mentality by manipulating statistics.

There is hatred in this country, especially against Muslims, Blacks, Hispanics, and immigrants in general. For better or worse, we Jews are now part of the American mainstream. If we want to be better Jews, we should work on eradicating hatred toward other minorities, and worry less about ourselves. We are secure.